A smashed window pane and some broken eggshells on a footpath were some of the tell-tale signs of events that took place this week on a residential street at the edge of Thetford.
On Friday afternoon it was not hard to find local people with a sense of foreboding after the latest disorder in the Norfolk market town which has seen crowds attempt to break into properties believed to be housing asylum seekers.
“The main concern is safety, the proximity of children and that people just have not been consulted about this,” said Jenny Hollis, a former councillor, who pointed out the proximity of a local school and nursery to a – now seemingly vacant – house on the targeted street in the north of the town.
“Thetford is a small town where people know each other, but if you are putting young men who people know nothing about into an area, sometimes in the dark of night, then it will be a cause of concern,” she said in reference to asylum seekers.
For three nights, Thetford was the scene of protests and disorder, with police officers being subjected to violence, windows smashed, fences broken and people attempting to break into a residential property, police said.
However, after unrest which the local MP said had “put Thetford back decades”, there was also deep unease among residents and others about the prospect of racism poisoning local relations, fuelled by disinformation and the role of the far right in seeking to exploit tensions.
“I have lived here for more than a decade and have come to call it home,” said a woman, originally from eastern Europe, around the corner from where the latest unrest took place. “The people are lovely, but last week was the first time that my partner was shouted at by someone who derided him as a ‘migrant’.”
Amid chants of “We want them out” from a crowd of up to 200 people on the targeted street on Wednesday night, a male police officer was hit by a brick and a female colleague was seriously bitten, Norfolk constabulary said. The number of arrests in connection with disorder in different parts of the town had risen to six as of Friday.
Asylum seekers had been removed from properties on Thursday for their safety, according to the police, and there was no answer at a number of homes believed to have been used for that purpose when the Guardian visited.
“I have HMOs [houses of multiple occupancy] with asylum seekers in them on both sides of my house,” said one man. They had tended to keep to themselves, he said, but he had concerns about tensions in the area and what it would do to property prices.
The three nights of disorder threaten to become the spark for the type of anti-immigration tensions that boiled over last year around a hotel outside the Essex town of Epping and spread elsewhere.
If the unrest in Thetford is different, however, it is that it marks the first time HMOs in England have become the target of concerted and organised anger.
Terry Jermy, the MP for South West Norfolk and a rare Labour presence in what has traditionally been a Conservative-leaning region, has criticised what he described as a lack of engagement by the Home Office, and given voice to people’s unease that cheaper, working-class areas have been chosen as the location for housing asylum seekers in HMOs.
“The lack of engagement both with the community and elected officials has been a huge concern, along with the apparent lack of a strategy, in terms of a cohesive plan, but also to close down rumours and the spread of misinformation,” said Jermy.
“I have been happy to acknowledge people’s concerns and support peaceful protest but what we have seen over the last few days is outright criminality, mob rule and vigilante-style antics which go way beyond the rule of law. These people – and in many cases I’m talking about those who have travelled to Thetford – claim to be proud to be British, but to be proud to be British is to support the rule of law.”
Criticism has persisted over the use of HMOs and the choice of locations to house asylum seekers, with protesters in Thetford targeting a list of houses believed to be used by Serco, a company that has a multimillion pound contract with the Home Office.
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Social media accounts operated by prominent far-right activists, including Stephen Yaxley Lennon – who calls himself Tommy Robinson – have disseminated footage from the protests. In one clip, a man can be seen directing crowds to an address where he said there were “invaders”, a term used by Robinson and others.
In answer to the allegation it had mishandled its contract, a spokesperson for Serco said it worked under the direction of the Home Office, which tells it the number of people it expects to house in local authority areas based on overall national levels of demand.
The Home Office has insisted the use of “large sites” is a key part of its strategy, and said the population of asylum seekers in hotels fell by 35% in the past year and by 63% from the peak of 56,000 in 2023.
Figures from Reform UK have taken a prominent interest in the opposition to the use of HMOs.
Scott Hussey, a member of the cabinet on Reform-controlled Norfolk county council, was at the scene on Friday, and said residents were frustrated at seeing their town being turned into “a dumping ground for illegal immigrants”.
He said his understanding from meeting with the Home Office was that more HMOs were going to be sited in Thetford,and that this would add to tensions over proposals to use a nearby RAF base to house asylum seekers.
Those who protested in Thetford this week included participants in a regular protest outside RAF Barnham, outside the town. Plans to house 3,750 migrants at the former base were revealed in June.
Anna Turley, the minister for border security and asylum, said on GB News on Friday that people had a right to protest but that the disorder in Thetford had been “horrendous”.
“What we’ve seen is spilling over into violence, which is just not acceptable,” she said. “Nobody should feel harassed, intimidated or threatened in their home, and certainly we shouldn’t see our emergency workers and our police attacked in the way that we have seen.”
